Laying the Groundwork of Listen & Be Heard Network

Since closing the doors of Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe in downtown Vallejo, Ca for the last time at the end of March 2008, I have been working on setting up the Listen & Be Heard Network. It has required building several websites and mailing lists, all ultimately connected by my involvement in the projects that inspired the websites I built.

You can now go to the Listen & Be Heard Network Store and purchase a Soul Phone Reading, Life Path Reading or Personal Year Reading from Tony Mims with your Credit Card or Pay Pal account. You can also purchase a book and a cd from me. The inventory will increase very soon with some exciting new inventory and the beginning of a consignment program.

The Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe Blog is another avenue for your participation in all things poetry. I have been publishing The Poem of the Day for years now. Originally it was part of Planet AUTHORity.com, where you will find text and audio archives of many interesting and varied poets. I began publishing The Poem of the Day again with the advent of Listen & Be Heard Weekly, where you will find another archive of the Poem of the Day in its next incarnation. The Poem of the Day now lives, very appropriately, at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe Blog, and I welcome your submissions. I also welcome your queries about starting your own column, as long as it’s about poetry.

Mailing lists are a great way for people with similar interests to support and inform each other. The most recent addition to the mailing lists hosted by Listen & Be Heard Network is the Party Crashers of Paradise Writers Collective. This list came about after the death of Reginald Lockett, author of the book Party Crashers of Paradise. A group of his friends, mostly Oakland Poets were inspired to come together as a group to serve the needs of Oakland based writers and poets.

Please take a look around the network, participate, make it useful to you and get in touch!

I loved this book. I picked it up in the Albuquerque airport on my way home after attending my father's funeral. Ms. Harjo speaks eloquently of birth and death in the telling of her story of becoming the fierce poet and musician that she...

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Dear Pedro,
John Dean interrupted my
regularly scheduled Sesame Street
when you were getting turned on to grass
i was watching Vietnam on TV
when you met Agent Orange
and he stuck to you like glue
i didn’t know i just heard
it was the wo...